A charity's attempt to airlift children to France has provoked anti-western feelings and may hinder other aid workers, writes Mary Fitzgeraldin N'Djamena
With their military-style boots and black trousers worn with matching gilets emblazoned with a red logo that read "Children Rescue", the French charity workers had raised more than a few eyebrows among those who make up Chad's international humanitarian community. "They walked around looking like an emergency crew or even security contractors," says one aid worker in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena. "They kept to themselves, but you couldn't help noticing them. They didn't look like typical aid workers."
Members of a relatively obscure French charity named L'Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark), the team planned to airlift what it said were Sudanese children orphaned by the conflict in neighbouring Darfur and bring them to Europe. But instead, the group's efforts have landed them in a Chadian jail, charged with child abduction and extortion.
Caught by police at the last minute as they attempted to board 103 children - some allegedly bandaged to appear injured - on to a chartered plane in Abeche in eastern Chad, the six charity workers face sentences of up to 20 years if convicted. The UN says most of the children, aged between one and 10, are from villages along Chad's remote borderlands and not orphans as the charity claimed.
The episode has caused outrage in Chad, prompting a diplomatic spat and stirring old resentments against its former colonial power. In France, Zoe's Ark has been portrayed either as a band of well-meaning but dangerously naive amateurs or do-gooders who, fired by a sense of righteousness, ignored warnings that they could be breaking the law. The charity itself insists its intentions were purely humanitarian.
"The team is made up of firemen, doctors and journalists," spokesman Christophe Letien said. "It's unimaginable that doubts are being cast on these people of good faith, who volunteered to save children from Darfur."
In Chad however, many believe something more sinister was afoot. President Idriss Deby stated on national TV that the children may have been destined for a paedophile ring or sold to organ traffickers. The country's media indulged in similarly lurid speculation, with one newspaper claiming the children were to be used as "guinea pigs" in European medical laboratories.
Zoe's Ark made no secret of its plans. In a notice posted on its website in April, it said it hoped to evacuate or "rescue" up to 10,000 Darfuri orphans under the age of five. Apparently, the group initially planned to have the children adopted in Europe but, given that the practice is illegal in Chad and Sudan, they refrained from mentioning adoption and instead urged people to volunteer as host families. More than 300 families signed up, according to French media reports, each handing over several thousand euro to foster a child. Many were waiting for the children to arrive at an airport in Rheims last week when news of the charity workers' arrests trickled back from Chad.
OFFICIALS IN FRANCE say the charity had been warned earlier this year that it risked breaking the law if it proceeded with the operation. French police have been investigating Zoe's Ark since and reportedly questioned its founder, former firefighter Eric Breteau, in August.
The warnings appear to have only reinforced the charity's sense of mission. On its website, Zoe's Ark takes pride in its lack of official support, boasting that the operation would "surely expose [ us] to the wrath of Khartoum, of certain politicians . . . who will cry scandal, speaking of ethics, illegality or the psychological traumas of uprooted children".
Breteau, who set up Zoe's Ark in 2005 to assist victims of the Asian tsunami, believed the mass airlift would help galvanise public opinion on the issue of Darfur. "He wanted to mark public opinion," his ex-wife, Agnes, told Paris Match. "By arriving in France with these children, he hoped to bring the French public's attention to the catastrophic situation of the children of Darfur, and to unleash a huge spirit of generosity."
Footage shot by one of three French journalists travelling with Zoe's Ark to report on its work supplies further evidence of the peculiar blend of foolhardiness and righteousness shared by the team. The reporter, who has been charged with complicity along with his fellow journalists and the aircraft's Spanish crew, is shown asking a female member of Zoe's Ark about the legality of "uprooting children like this".
Her answer is swift and not a little shrill. "Is it legal to assassinate a people?" she retorts. "Children are dying." Perhaps because they were aware of official disapproval of their plans, the Zoe's Ark team decided to operate under a new name, "Children Rescue", on arrival in Chad. According to reports, they set up base in a village called Adre near the border with Sudan, where they provided medical treatment for sick children.
One of the bleakest and most inhospitable corners of Chad, the volatile eastern border region has been plagued by local rebels and tribal tensions. The ensuing violence has displaced around 180,000 people. Added to that are the waves of Sudanese refugees from Darfur, fleeing a conflict that has left more than 200,000 people dead and millions displaced from their homes. Some NGOs estimate that at least one-half of those living in camps catering for Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians are children.
Maryse Cales, one of the French parents hoping to host a child, said the charity asked local elders to act as middlemen and to identify children at risk. Zoe's Ark insists the children were presented to them as war orphans from Darfur. Some of the children the team attempted to transport to France claim they were lured from their villages with sweets. Two Chadian nationals have been charged in connection with the case.
Whatever the truth behind the Zoe's Ark scandal, the incident has provoked anti-European feeling in Chad. "Modern day slave trade" read the headline in local newspaper N'Djamena Bi-Hebdo, above a photograph of the detainees. Similar sentiments were voiced during demonstrations in the town, where the 16 Europeans are being held. "Are you one of those people here to steal our children?" this reporter was asked a number of times on the streets of N'Djamena.
ON A VISIT to the orphanage where the children are staying, President Deby declared the accused had treated Africans like "animals". "Here's the truth," he thundered, "about this Europe that portrays itself as helping, this Europe which seeks to give lessons to Africa."
Chad's tourism minister Ibrahim Ahmed Koulamallah, in Spain for a conference, told El Pais that "western arrogance" when dealing with impoverished countries like Chad led to the impression that in Africa, "everything is permitted."
The Chadian government's furious response has prompted some to wonder if the case is being used for political purposes. "This public anger will calm down. The whole thing has been exaggerated and exploited by the government," says Yaldet Begoto Oulatar, a newspaper editor in N'Djamena, pointing out the alleged abduction occurred in the same week the government signed a crucial agreement with rebel groups. Fears in Europe that the incident may impact on the upcoming deployment of a predominantly French EU peacekeeping force to eastern Chad were dismissed by Chadian authorities. But the debacle has worried humanitarian organisations working in the country, concerned that their efforts could now be viewed with suspicion.
AFTER NEWS OF the thwarted operation broke, Save the Children had to deal with questions from locals wary because its name in Arabic - one of two official languages in Chad - sounds similar to Children Rescue, the name used by Zoe's Ark. Other organisations fear the scandal could unpick painstaking efforts to gain the local population's trust and confidence.
UN agencies operating in Chad issued a statement saying they "deplore that such acts would alter the serious work that the majority of international NGOs in Chad have been developing for decades, in respect of national laws and international standards." Philippe Rougier, Concern's country director in Chad, says it is a real worry. "We have to wait until the investigation is complete to understand why these people did what they did, but in the meantime it could be very damaging for the image of NGOs, and not only in this country," he says. Concern works in four camps accommodating internally displaced persons in the southeast of Chad.
"The environment we work in here is volatile and in such circumstances trust, confidence and acceptance are very important. It can be very difficult to gain that trust and just as easy to lose it. If you lose it, it could put NGOs and the work they do at risk."
Meanwhile in France, questions remain as to how much officials knew about the mission. It emerged last week that the French military, which has a permanent presence in Chad, had allowed the charity workers fly on their planes. Questioning why it did not do more to prevent the operation, Le Monde said the government was "guilty by omission". Smarting at such accusations, Rama Yade, France's minister for foreign affairs and human rights, attempted to turn the focus back to Zoe's Ark. "You can't just set off on this kind of operation, even with the best intentions in the world," she said. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions and I think it's important that there is personal responsibility on the part of those who embark on this kind of operation."